by Kenneth Wise
Chapter 6
The papers were turned in during Friday’s class. Most students completed the project; some with more effort than others; some did next to nothing.
Over the weekend, as Miss Clutter began reading and grading the papers from her three classes, she found most to be dry and unimaginative, something whipped up in an hour. But she came to one that nearly took her breath away.
“Your fingers are so long and firm. They are perfect; they contain no flaws, so soft in the right places and slightly rough in others. As I look at the palm of your hand and the many lines that crisscross them, I think of highways to other universes. Touching the center of the palm of your hand is exciting as the muscles tense and your pinkie finger twitches with excitement at being called into action. Your hands, when light falls across them just right, and highlights just certain portions while hiding others, look like a sculptor’s work in progress.”
There was more, but she had to stop and let her senses catch up to her. The work was excellent and she wondered how the writer had found the inspiration for his paper. She looked to see who had written the paper. “Steven Cross” she said aloud to an empty study in a house that only she occupied.
She finished reading the essay and was visibly shaking by the time she got to the end. She thought to herself “No teenage boy should be able to write something so beautiful and heartfelt.” Then, out of left field, she had a feeling, a combination of equal parts excitement and dread.
She searched through the pile and found the paper turned in by Andrew Chambers, her other star pupil. She began to read:
“When you ball your hands into fists they feel as smooth as marble. Touching them is as if to touch the Mona Lisa or the statue of David. When you extend your hands with the index fingers and thumbs touching, it looks like a diamond in the center and each finger looks like a shaft of light radiating from the diamond’s brilliance. As the light moves around your posed hands, one can almost see the color and fineness of the diamond. It’s as if your hands have a soul of their own and those privileged to see your hands as I do can see the beauty and the depth of your soul.”
She had to stop to let her emotions calm a bit. Never had one of her institutionalized students taken the time or put in an effort to write something as complex and as emotionally perfect as this. Now, suddenly she had two at once. As a teacher she was elated but as the adult in the room she had a nagging feeling that the beautiful prose she was reading was an omen of something less beautiful. She pushed that negativity aside, for now.
She finished reading the essay and laid it aside with Steven’s.
She stared off into the silence of space and wondered about the two papers and suddenly she said to no one, “My God, they sound like two people in love; I wonder if they realized that.”
Then it hit her, they were in love and likely didn’t have a clue. Only two people in love could see that depth of beauty in each other. “But then again”, she said to herself, “I may not be the best judge of what love is. I didn’t have much success in that area of my own life.”
“Should I do or say anything?” She said to the embers in the fireplace. She decided to watch their work, and their actions, very carefully and make sure there was nothing that merited reporting. She wished there was someone she could talk to but knew that just the mention of a concern could destroy the lives of these kids. “I will just trust my instincts”, she whispered.
One day while sitting in the day room listening to the radio and feeling bored with their poetry assignment, Andrew asked Steven if he would like to get some poetry books from the library and find some place private and read. ”Maybe we can write something that compares with the masters, at least a little.” Andrew said. “I’ll bet we can learn to write as good as some of them, if we try.” Steven said. That was the beginning of the journey, two boys, best friends, with brains like sponges and a quest for learning, challenged the world. They began soaking up knowledge, not just about poetry, but about anything that crossed their young minds.
They did find a quiet place and went there often and read Keats, and Burns, and Dickinson. They read Shakespeare and Augustine. They read Aristotle and Plato, and Newton, and Galileo. They read Engels and Marx. They read Frost and Nietzsche. They thought that each of the writers, in order to use their minds to see the world in so many different ways and find the right words and use them the way they did to explain what their minds had discovered, must have been given that ability by a much higher power than could be found in the classroom or even the library. That power could only be God. They wanted to be just like those thinkers and prayed that God would grant them the ability to learn and to never lose the desire to learn.